The ''AOS Checklist of North American Birds'' is a checklist of the bird species found in

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and Middle America which is now maintained by the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its m ...

(AOS). The checklist was originally published by the AOS's predecessor, the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). The Union merged with the

Cooper Ornithological Society The Cooper Ornithological Society (COS), formerly the Cooper Ornithological Club, was an American ornithological society. It was founded in 1893 in California and operated until 2016. Its name commemorated James Graham Cooper, an early California b ...

in 2016 to form the American Ornithological Society. The checklist was first published in 1886; the seventh edition of the checklist was published in 1998 and is now updated every year by an

open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

article published in the ''

Ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...

''. Seven editions and 54 supplements (minor updates) have been published in the last 127 years. According to

Joel Asaph Allen Joel Asaph Allen (July 19, 1838 – August 29, 1921) was an American zoology, zoologist, mammalogy, mammalogist, and ornithology, ornithologist. He became the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union, the first curator of birds and ma ...

, the Codes of Nomenclature set out in the first edition of the Checklist "later became the basis of the

International Code of Zoological Nomenclature The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the ...

, framed on essentially the same lines and departing from it in no essential respect, except in point of brevity, through omission of adequate illustrations of the rules, and thereby rendering necessary the issuance of official 'Opinions' to clear up obscure points." The current version of the checklist is available online from the website of the American Ornithological Society. The list is updated regularly by the AOS's North American Classification Committee (NACC), which considers proposals related to

classification Classification is a process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Classification is the grouping of related facts into classes. It may also refer to: Business, organizat ...

and

nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal naming conventions, conventions of everyday speech to the i ...

References

Lists of birds {{bird-book-stub